SCIENCE Secretary Peter Kyle has refused to apologise for saying that Nigel Farage is on the side of paedophiles because he said he would repeal the controversial Online Safety Act.

Speaking to GB News, he defended saying that Farage would enable the type of crimes committed by Jimmy Savile by scrapping the act.

Kyle said: “It was grossly offensive, the views of Nigel Farage, I’m afraid, in this regard. The Online Safety Act puts the onus on tech companies to prevent the grooming of children.

“The Online Safety Act puts the onus on tech companies to prevent under-13s from having access to social media, of course, which includes messaging services for which strangers, strange men can contract children.

“Now, Nigel Farage has said explicitly he wants to overturn that act. Now, words have consequences in politics, because if he gets into power, he will overturn that act, and he will make it easier for predators and paedophiles to have access to children.

“There is no definitive grey area about this. Either you’re on the side of predators and paedophiles, as Nigel Farage is, because he wants them to have more access to our children online than you are with the Labour Party, where we are making sure we are holding the tech companies to account to prevent that kind of access, to keep children safer, and we can do so also at the time of also reinforcing freedom.”

Asked if he should apologise for his comments about Farage and Savile, Kyle said: “I saw the words that he said. He said he will overturn the act, and he did not say a single measure that he would bring in with specific detail.

“He could not answer any of the detail on what would come after the Online Safety Act. You can’t say you’re going to overturn it because you don’t like it and then deliver all the actions that the Online Safety Act does itself. You can’t do it.

“You have one or the other. Either you support the actions that prevent paedophiles and predators from having access to children, or you don’t. And he has said that he doesn’t. That’s why I’m holding him to account.

“I hope the media, when they can finally interview him on this issue, will ask what he intends to do, because if he wants to overturn this act, what on earth is he going to replace it with that’s going to do the same thing that we’re doing, what in a different way?

“It does not hold water, it does not make sense, and it firmly places Nigel Farage on the side of predators and paedophiles and not on the side of keeping children safe.”